FREEMASONRY AND THE MESSAGE OF AQUARIA

"If,
as Aristotle said, it be the mission of tragedy to cleanse and exalt us,
leaving us subdued with a sense of pity and hope and fortified against ill
fortune, it is permitted us to add that in simplicity, in depth and power,
in its grasp of the realities of the life of man, its portrayal of the
stupidity of evil and the splendor of virtue, its revelation of that in our
humanity which leads it to defy itself, rather than defame, defile or betray
its moral integrity, and in its prophecy of the victory of light over
shadow, there is not another drama known among man like the Third Degree of
Masonry."

Joseph Fort Newton, "THE BUILDERS"

In correspondence with the Temples of the mystic cults of antiquity, the
Lodge of our modern Freemasonry are emblematical representations of the
Universe in miniature, for the real lodge is the Universe itself which is
one Great Temple or place of Initiation into the mysteries of the soul and
of God. Mother-Earth is also the Mother-Lodge of us all, and as its vast
work goes on, souls are ever descending into it and souls are being called
out of it at the knocks of some great unseen Warden of life and death, who
calls them here to labor and summons them hence for refreshment in the
heavenly places. From time immemorial Brother Man has been required to
clothe himself (with a physical form - the body of mortality, symbolized by
our Masonic Apron) and enter the Lodge of Life, wherein, silently and
without sound of metal tool, is proceeding the perpetual work of rebuilding
that unfinished and invisible Temple, of which the mystical stones and
timber are the souls of men.

Freemasonry, then, is an image of a universal process, a process which is
impersonal and meant for all mankind, but nevertheless we Freemasons are
privileged as we possess, in our graded Ceremonies, a small scale chart of
the stages or Degrees through which all human life must of necessity pass on
Admission into the Craft, however, is not to be regarded merely as
participation in a ceremonial excursion into the realms of theoretic
transformative progress; on the contrary, it is a solemn sacramental act,
and one which commits Candidates to the arduous task of perfecting
themselves in advance of the mass of their fellows in order to promote the
spiritual welfare of the Race by an active co-operation in the design of the
Grand Master of all. The Craft exists to serve the cosmic purpose as a means
of grace provided by The Great Architect of the Universe for assisting human
redemption, and its life-sources must therefore be looked for in causes far
an terior to its inception in 1717, while its history can only be properly
viewed in relation to the course of both national and world history.

Students of the Masonic subject will come to know that there is a branch
of arcane science which deals with times and seasons in human affairs; which
reveals the operation of a periodic law governing them, and which enables us
to survey past and present events and prognosticate future events in much
the same way that astronomers follow the courses of the stars and predict
eclipses. With the assistance of this law we are able to discern that human
existence is punctuated by periods of flow and ebb, in which duality, or the
spiritual and the material, is alternately manifested through the two areas
of circular motion designated as centripetal and centrifugal, or the advance
and recessional movements in the scheme of eternal progress. As evidence of
this statement, take the twenty-four hour measurement as embracing the day
and the night; the lunar month with its two periods, that of increase and
decrease; the annual solar revolution wherein summer and winter are the
positive and negative poles of activity; and, greater still, the precession
of the equinoxes, in which the Sun's equatorial passage through one of the
signs of the Zodiac constitutes a sub-cycle of 2,160 years. The same truth
will also be found to be on record in the Volume of the Sacred Law - Genesis
8, verse 22 - where, in terms of natural imagery, it is declared, "While the
earth remained, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and
winter, and day and night shall not cease." Moreover, these cyclic periods
will be found evidenced by w ell marked events and charges of human
development and the subject of this Paper is to consider the Masonic
doctrine of Initiation in the light of forthcoming changes due to incoming
of a new cycle, that of Aquarius, under the Sign of the Man.

A great deal has been written in exposition of the Masonic Initiation,
but notwithstanding a marked forward trend observable within the Order and a
corresponding increase in apprehension, it must be conceded that the
majority of Freemasons still fail to recognize that the key to the whole
Craft system in contained in the Central Legend or Traditional History of
the Third Degree. The Craft legend of H.A., although known as "Traditional
History" would be better described as "historical tradition", because it is
the Hebrew form of a cosmological doctrine expressed in numerous ways and
common to all peoples since the beginning of time. It is a doctrine
explaining the genesis, fall, and destiny of man, and accounting for the
mystery of evil, sin and death with which our world is afflicted, by a
catastrophe which occurred out of time and space and before we and our
planet assumed their present physicalised condition. Under the allegory of a
temporal murder and the loss of building plans, the Craft Legend perpetuates
the primal doctrine of Cosmic Tragedy; a tragedy committed before time
began, and one by reason of which all Nature groans and is in travail, and
human society exists in a state of continuous disorder and confusion. The
great virtue of the Craft system, however lies in the fact that the Third
Degree not only proclaims the nature of the "heavy calamity" which has
befallen Humanity, but it further reveals how "that which is lost" may be
recovered . Thus, although the narrative undoubtedly places emphasis upon
the fact that man has fallen away from a high estate to the externalized
condition in which we now live, its real object is to draw attention to the
truth which has been taught in all subsequent ages, viz. that the way of
return to our former eminence is that by which we came. The intimation is,
in ritual language, that a loss sustained in the "East" is not to be
recovered in the "West," by which we are intended to understand that human
life having originated in the mystical "East," and descended into this
world, must eventually return again to its source. In the words of verse
written by that well known Masonic authority, W.Bro. A.E.Waite:

"From East to West the soul her journey takes; At many bitter founts her
fever slakes; Halts at strange taverns by the way to feast, Resumes her
load, and painful progress makes Back to the East."

Our Masonic doctrine therefore enshrines traditional, universal
principles, about the way all Humanity must traverse from this world of time
and transience (the "West") to the eternal "East." It demonstrates
conclusively that life is a vast Initiation-process, slowly patiently, and
by law and order, leading an intractable world from darkness to increasing
light. But, we also learn from the Volume of the Sacred Law that "times
(cycles, time-periods) and seasons" are allocated for the accomplishment of
cosmic purposes, and that a definite time-limit is set to the stages of the
initiatory process. Hence it is that the benefits of initiation are not only
conferred in the individual and personal sense, to be achieved by voluntary
self-discipline as envisaged by the Craft system, but there are also
occasions when the power is directed to operate upon the collective
consciousness of mankind. Freemasons will do well to reflect that this is
precisely what is happening to-day, when under the guidance of the Master of
Life, humanity as a whole is in the process of being Passed to the Second
Degree in a cosmic and vital sense; we are all working to-day as "minds,"
upon the plane of mind, the region of Humanity's Second Degree. Now, as
Freemasonry so clearly illustrates, such initiation involves at one and the
same time, a renunciation and a gain, or, in other words, a putting away of
that which has served its purpose and become effete and unessential, with
the corresponding attainment of something superior and essential. It also
implies the permanent tuning up of consciousness from a lower to a higher
pitch, the result of which is, that awareness (whether visual or
intellectual) becomes intensified, and the immature reactions of the sense
native give place to enhanced powers of intelligence. These factors are in
evidence today, and despite the fact that at the moment the majority are
unable to interpret correctly their feelings, it is becoming increasingly
obvious that an organic change is being effected in public conscious ness.

Nineteen centuries ago a great spiritual Father and seer wrote to his
disciples "Little children, is the last time" (1st. Epistle JOHN,
Chapter 2, verse 18): that is, we are living in the closing years, the last
lap, of a world cycle and world-order which is rapidly approaching its end
and destined to give place to another "time" of a new, higher, and different
character. In view of recent events and present conditions, who does not
recognize the force of those words today? Every thinking mind realizes,
every sensitive conscience feels, that we are comings to the end of an age,
that the old order of things is fast going down hill with ever-increasing
momentum. It has now become apparent that we are moving towards a now order
of things, and that the present crisis marks the transition; in biblical
language; therefore, it is a "pass-over" of just such a character as that
described in the Book of Exodus as occurring "when Israel came out of
Egypt". What does such a pass-over imply, and what is the order of things to
which the transition is being made?

To deal with these questions from the Masonic standpoint and under
scriptural guidance, let us remember that, in addition to being our great
spiritual guide, the Volume of the Sacred law is the greatest textbook of
occult science that exists. It is the chart of human

spiritual evolution during the ages for which it was written, and it
clearly indicates, for those who can read it, the position at which we gain,
have at present arrived and the stages of development through which we have
yet racially to pass. In a brief Paper of this nature it is impossible to
attempt to expound the philosophic basis upon which the Scriptures impliedly
rest, and one must ask that certain facts be assumed as true. One of those
facts is that our planet and the system to which it belongs form but part of
a vast clockwork of interknit forces worlds or modes of being, of which we
in our present state see only the physical aspect to the exclusion of other
aspects which are not physical. We, here, live

upon the plane of phenomena and effects, and until our inner eyes are
opened to what is going on invisibly around us we remain unconscious of the
realms of spiritual noumena, causes, and cosmic ideation which make those
phenomena possible. The seen and unseen

worlds are in constant interaction, and in the same way that the face of
an ordinary timepiece is divided up into minutes, quarters and hours, that
express the activities of the interior works, so were we to see in its
entirety the clockwork of the Universe we should discern the extent to which
physical events and cataclysms and crises in human history are the surface
records of spiritual energies at work beyond our present sense observation.
Further, as our clocks record the major and minor subdivisions of time, so
the Great Clock of the Universe strikes its hours, half-hours and quarters,
and the echo of its chimes is heard among us in the form of great world
events and changes that periodically occur. It is these moments of less or
greater crisis which are alluded to by the biblical term "pass-over", and
the Hebrew feast of the "Passover" was instituted to keep prominently before
the human memory the assurance that such moments would periodically and
infallibly occur, and be attended by great upheavals, distress and
destruction of existing conditions. For students this subject has always
been one of astronomical science, and it is in the terms of astronomy and
the Zodiac that it can be most conveniently expressed. Without going into
details it may be briefly stated

that the ZODIAC is a chart of the solar system and the precession of the
equinoxes through it constitute a guide by means of which some things
concerning human destiny can be explicated. The solar system, in the course
of backward motion through the twelve Signs of the Zodiac, takes
approximately 25,920 years to make a complete,

circle, and the last sub-cycle of 2,160 years - in which the equinoctial
point receded through Pisces, the Sign of the Fishes - was completed in the
year A.D.1881. Dr. Watt's metrical arrangement of the Zodiacal signs will
provide their names and order for convenient reference:-

"The RAM, the BULL, the HEAVENLY TWINS, And next the CRAB, the LION
shines, The VIRGIN and the SCALES, The SCORPION, ARCHER and THE GOAT, The
man that holds the WATERPOT, And FISH with glittering tails."

A new is therefore entered every 2,160 years, the signs being traversed
in reverse order, and it is traditional that the passage of each sign in
marked by the growth of a new religious conception employing a symbolism
appropriate to the sign. For example, at the beginning of the Christian era
the solar system was in the sign of PISCES, the FISHES, and we find
Fishermen disciples (the "fishers of men"), the draught of fishes, and other
fish symbolism formally employed, while the era itself was foreshadowed in
the "sign of the prophet Jonah", who was swallowed by a great fish. The
previous sign was that of ARIES, the RAM, and under this sign we find the
Hebrew dispensation with the "Ram caught in a thicket", the Ram of the burnt
offering, the trumpet of Ram's horns, and other similar symbolism. Before
that came TAURUS the BULL, to which are assigned the Bulls of Nineveh, and
before that GEMINI, the TWINS, in which period the cult originated which
survived in classical times in the form of the Great Twin Brethren, CASTOR
and POLLUX. Further back than this it is not necessary to go, although it is
of interest to note that to this day the rising sun and the lion figure
together on the postage stamps of Persia, and are a reminder of the days
when LEO the LION (the sign ruled astrological ly by the Sun) was the sign
ruling our solar system.

The changes now taking place in the world-order in consequence of tho
"pass-over" into the sign of AQUARIUS (the Water-bearer or Waterman) are of
greater portent than those of the former two (PISCES and ARIES), because
AQUARIUS is one of the four major or cardinal signs. These four cardinal
signs, LEO, TAURUS, AQUARIUS and SCORPIO, correspond with the four arms of
the cosmic Cross, and are described in the Volume of the Sacred Law
(Ezekiel, Chapter 1) in the likeness of four living "creatures", the LION,
the OX, the MAN (i.e. the Water-man), and the EAGLE, facts which are of
peculiar significance to Royal Arch Freemasons. Treating man (individually
and collectively) as the symbol and measure of the Cosmos, the science of
Initiation relates the signs of the Zodiac to his organism, and the Ram is
allotted to the head, the Fishes to the feet, the Water-man to the legs.
This will convey nothi ng to those who remain unver sed in the deep
implications of the Ancient Wisdom teaching, but nevertheless an attempt
will be made in this place to offer an explanation in simple terms. The
significance of our race an planet being brought at the time of the founding
of the Abrahamic family and dispensation within the especial influence of
the RAM, and of the Ram being associated with the head or seat of
intelligence, is that then for the first time the racial consciousness
became aware of the truth that a new factor, a new element, fro m the
spiritual plane, was in process of becoming introduced into the psychical
and physical fabric of this fallen planet for the purpose of restoring and
redeeming it. It meant that "the day-spring (or fontal source of life) from
on high" was about to visit us, and this fact is veiled, yet written large
for those who can penetrate the veil, in the incident of the patriach's
proposed immolation of his son, when he beheld near at hand a ram caught in
a thicket. The ram of his vision was none other than the "Lamb of God"
coming down from heaven into the "thicket" of this gross and material world,
and the disordered tangle of human conditions, to purge and revivify them.
During the period recorded in the Volume of the Sacred Law as from Abraham
to Christ the world remained under the astronomic influence of the Ram,
until at length came the next great "pass-over," and our system passed out
of the influence of the Ram and entered that of the Fishes. The sign of
their Fishes, as already stated, is referable to the fee t, and by the
"pass-over" from the Ram to the Fishes the "day-spring from on high" passed
from the heights to the depths, and was therefore no longer a prospective
possibility as a Redeemer apprehended by expectant faith and approached only
by the higher spiritual consciousness of seers and prophets; it was a
present and actualized fact, brought down to our very "feet" and normal
minds. Herein lies the significance of the Master washing the disciples'
feet and declaring, "he that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet,
but is clean every whit" (John 13, 10); in our higher part we are already
and always clean it is only our "feet", our lower minds and personality,
that are foul and need cleansing. And now, after ever two thousand years of
the influence of this spiritual element upon the planet comes another
transition. We are today passing out of Pisces and coming into the sphere of
Aquarius; a sign that in the literature of the old mystics is associated
with the "legs", and it is in reference to the pre sent incoming cycle that
it is written in the Volume of the Sacred Law, "many shall run to and fro
and knowledge (spiritual consciousness) shall be increased". The last twenty
centuries, many will say with the present at chaotic state of the world in
mind, have not wrought much. Perhaps not to the outward eye, but we must
look deeper; despite and amid all the present evil of the world, all the
materialism and destruction, at least the beginnings have been made f or the
future; in the language of our Craft, foundations have been laid in the
intelligence and consciences of men, upon which a superstructure can be
raised when all the rubbish has been cleared away which the laying of
foundations always entails. The sudden admission of light always creates
intense commotion among the denizens of darkness, and for this reason the
entrance of the "Light of the World" into our planet has culminated in the
horrors of today; but this is only the initial stage, and amid th e agonies
and sorrows of the present we must never forget that the change to a new and
better order is becoming possible because of them.

In the Volume of the Sacred Law the "pass-over" from the sign of the
Fishes to the Water-bearer is alluded to in St. Mark, chapter 14, verse 13 -
"Go ye into the city and there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of
water; follow ye him", The city in question is, of course the "heavenly
city", or, in the words of St. Augustine; the "City of God", i.e. the
spiritual plane of cosmic causation. These words in the Gospel according to
St. Mark are the link with that large body of Old Testament prophecy which
declares that the time would come when the Holy Spirit should be poured out
upon all the nations of the world, and that the present "earth"
(materialized human consciousness) should become quickened and
spiritualized. The transition through which the world is now passing is one
betokening an organic change in the spiritual life of humanity, and this
will be the direct result of the liberation from the plane of spirit of an
unprecedented influx of mystical "water" into this interlinked plane of
effects. We Freemasons are not without some knowledge of the significance of
mystical "water", for there is a veiled reference to it in our "pass-word"
leading to the Second Degree which involves the conception of a similar
"Fall of Water". What, then is this mystical "water", and who is "the man
bearing the pitcher" from which it is to be poured forth so abundantly? St.
Paul teaches us that "spiritual things must be spiritually discerned", and
it is therefore useless for us to think of them in physical terms. However,
the explanation lies in the fact that in all mystical systems common water
is in correspondence , and a symbol for, that pure, incorruptible,
eleutheric element, spoken of in the Volume of the Sacred Law as the "Water
of Life".

It is this which is referred to in St. John, Chapter 3, verse 5, where we
read, "except a man be born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter into
the Kingdom of God". There is a definite reason for this correspondence,
because in the same manner that common water is a large ingredient of our mortal part, so the celestial fluid or
element is an essential constituent of the so ul, and from this exhaustless
reservoir every soul that exists can renew, cleanse and replenish itself
perpetually, and being "water of life", it is the vehicle and contains all
the properties of true, as distinct from sensuous life. It is the original
"holy water", the universal solvent for all hardness of heart, and the
baptismal purifier. It brings wisdom and illumination of mind because it is the
universal vehicle and medium through which the Divine Light and Intelligence
are communicated to the human soul. We can thus visualize what must follow
from the predisposition of the cosmic spiritual mechanism, which will liberate into the fiery psychic
atmosphere of this frenzied planet an abnormal tide of this Celestial
Life-stream, for that will be the result of the present "pass-over". Have no
results of that outpouring been yet experienced? Assuredly; but the fullness
of those results is to come. These last two thousand years have been needed
in order to pave the way for quickened soul-growth for, humanity h as had to
be "properly prepared." The world has had to be fully opened up; nations,
east and west, knitted together into a whole of mutually interdependent
parts; society consolidated; a spirit of concord and fraternity generated;
the dross and rubble of current civilization cleared away - processes which, these years past, have been in the doing,
and the completing of which is being accomplished in the fiery crucible
today. The race cannot march forward, cannot attain a now grade of spiritual
evolution, u ntil its iniquities have been burned up and put behind it. Let no one therefore lose, but
rather take, courage in the presence of events which are apparently
disastrous to all dreams and hopes of good. If they are the inevitable
harvest of our past, they form the essential prelude to our better future. The ground must be swept and cleared before it can
be built upon afresh. But the Hand that devastates also restores:- I looked
and lo! mid the decay The Wastor was the Builder too; And when the
dust-cloud rolled away, And when the dust-cloud rolled away, I saw the new!
(Browning)

The world and its institutions are now being subjected to trial and
testing, and the testing will continue until such conditions are attained as
make a now order of things possible. Years will yet go to it, but time, as
we count it, moves at its own pace when the cosmic processes of
Spirit-action are at work. Meanwhile, amid the break-up of all external
things, an interior constructive work is going on, preparing upon the mental
and psychic planes the conditions that will characterize the Aquarian age
and t he evolutionary change in human consciousness upon the threshold of

Humanity has come at last - in recent years that coming has been
silently, but enormously speeded up to be so closely knit, its units to be
so mutually interdependent, as already to have developed what is spoken of
as a social consciousness. The appropriation of the whole of the world's
surface, the intellectual linking up of its several parts, rapid universal
distribution of thought and ideas, annihilation of time and distance by
scientific ingenuities, have all tended to expedite racial consolidation,
until even the non-mystical "man in the street" has been forced into a crude
and elementary perception of the mystical truth that humanity is a single
organism of which every part is essential to the well-being of every other
part, and that every ma n is indeed by the necessity of things, demonstrably
his brother's keeper. Unquestionably this perception is a vast race gain,
which has been brought about, not by deliberate adaptation of conduct to the
theory or ideal of some doctrinaire, whether political or religious, but as
a result of actual life-experience gained by contact with the conditions and
force-currents that control human destiny. The great significance of this
gain, however, lies in the fact that the perception of unity in respect of
the races external, material nature, is only the prelude to a larger vision;
one which will disclose that not only the collective forms of men, but their
aggregated inward being also, constitutes the Cosmic Temple of the Divine
Spirit, the dwelling place of the Shekinah or Divine Presence. In the
meantime it must be acknowledged that after a period of exhaustive
investigation of his material environment, man finds himself at last flung
back upon himself; he h as interrogated nature to the farthest reach of his
natural faculties, and the result has been to bring him to an impasse. There
now remains to him but one more kingdom to exploit - the kingdom which is
within himself.

Since we are now standing on the threshold of the Age, it is time that we
considered the position of our Craft and the part that Freemasonry has to
play in the incoming cycle. During the next two thousand years the human
race must penetrate deeply into the

mysteries of Aquarius, which are the mysteries of Man. Hence, we
Freemasons who have been solemnly exhorted to guide our reflections to "that
most interesting of all human studies", must now take up in earnest that
which our lips have so glibly repeated: "Man; know thyself". And step by
step we must prove and demonstrate to the world the knowledge thus gained.
In the fact that, amidst so much imperfect apprehension of its meaning and
intention, Freemasonry should not only have survived but continues to make
an ever-widening appeal to the imagination, exists the proof that, inherent
in it, however deeply veiled, is a vibrant indestructible vital principle.
That vital principle became implanted in the Masonic system same three
centuries ago, but those wise, farseeing, unknown Founders who, as we have
endeavored to show (see Paper "Freemasonry; How, Whence & Whither?"),
conceived and inspired the formation of the Order as a means of ensuring the
perpetuation of the ancient Secret Doctrine through a period of darkness and
disruption, and until such time as that Doctrine and the Mysteries that once
taught it, can again be revived in a larger way .

During the past two centuries the Craft has been gradually developing
from small and crude beginnings into its present vast and highly elaborated
organization. Its future development and the value of the Order as a moral
force in society will depend upon the view that the members take of their
system; if they fail to interpret its veiled purport, to enter into the
understanding of its underlying philosophy, and to translate its symbolism
into what is signified thereby, they will but secularize what was designed
as a means of spiritual instruction and grace. Freemasonry is closely linked
with the message of Aquaria, and with the incoming of the new cycle we may
confidently look forward to the restoration, in a form adapted to modern
conditions, of the ancient Wisdom-teaching and the practice of those
Mysteries of which Freemasonry is the direct and representative descendant.
Indeed the place and office of Freemasonry cannot be adequately appreciated
without acquaintance with the Mysteries of antiquity, for in the words of
the poet:- "Save by the old road none attain the new, And from the Ancient
Hills alone we catch the view."